With general elections set to clash with the world’s biggest Twenty20 extravaganza, the franchises may not be able to play all their home matches in their own cities.

They will, however, get to host games at ‘neutral venues’.

According to sources, nothing has been conveyed to the teams so far, but this is the unstated understanding BCCI officials have reportedly reached after interacting with the central government.

“IPL is here to stay and if after every five years there is talk about taking the league abroad due to general elections, it’s not good for the stakeholders. This has to end somewhere,” a source told TOI.

It was also suggested that BCCI is going to use all possible grounds in India. There are 23 ODI venues in the country and the board plans to use each and every one of them.

Don’t be surprised if Delhi Daredevils play their home matches in Dharamsala and Raipur. Last year, 12 grounds were used for IPL matches.

The foreign idea has not been done away with completely. Another source pointed out that shifting a few matches out of India could still be possible if IPL finds it tough to sort out the match schedules.

Some of the politicians who are with BCCI are against IPL going out of the country. Most team owners had also expressed their wish to play the event in India, at the IPL workshop held in Singapore last November.

First Published on January 22, 2014, 11:17 pmLast updated on February 8, 2014, 10:25 pm